The Young Soldier
by Herobob
Summary: ok, this is actually first world war, but i cudnt find a ww1 movi 2 put it in.its sum englich crswk that i decided was good enuff 4 fanfiction, so her it is!


**The Young Soldier**

The hushed wind gushed past Will as he stared out at the bleak landscape. It rushed, then slowed and started up again, pushing Will's brown hair from his face. He observed the intense lack of movement in front of him, as a man might look into a pit of fire into which he must fling himself, and yet is not interested whatsoever.

Ever since his first crawl, Will had slowly become indifferent to the repeated 'assaults on enemy positions'. Each time the whistle blew, Will knew he would very probably be dead within the next few minutes. And yet, whether by luck or by skill, he had not died. He had fought on, through the mud and smoke, and screams. But this, Will had found to his dismay, was far worse than death. Now he was trapped in this place of mud and fumes and pain. He had lived, but only to see the disgrace of the retreats, and the failure of each new trudge across the wet desert to more chaos, and another retreat. Even worse, he had lived to watch each of his comrades fall, or just disappear in a hail of machine-gun bullets; until they were replaced by new men, who were themselves soon destroyed, perhaps in a grenade blast, or even friendly fire from their own artillery. He had lived to watch his best friend die in this place, shot through the head by a German sniper.

He had seen all this, as he saw the stretch of blasted nature in front of him, with his waking eyes, and he knew that it was all real, but a nightmare, and he wanted it to end.

Four nights ago, Will had been on night watch with Rich. Richard Abrams had joined up with Will. They had been eighteen, but when asked their age they told the truth. The stern faced officer had leaned down slowly;

"Did you just say nineteen, son?" Will had looked Rich, then into the officers eyes. In them he had seen the thrill of war, a great adventure.

"You must be nineteen to fight for your country son. Now, you are nineteen, I believe?"

"Yes, sir, I am nineteen, and so is my friend, Rich. We both want to join up for the army, sir."

The officer had smiled, then given them uniforms and papers on the spot.

On the cold, frosty night of November the 14th, Will and Rich were chatting quietly, rubbing their gloved hands while peering into the gloom of no-man's-land. By now they were good friends; Rich was full of confidence and vigour, whereas Will was quiet and shy, but Rich had taken Will under his wing. Will could fend for himself, but it felt so much better to have a friend with him, who he liked and trusted. Rich was telling Will about a girl he knew back in England. She did ballet, Rich said. His eyes were alight with emotion and memories, and they were looking past Will, into the past in another country. He told Will in a voice that should have been hushed about how he used to watch her dance. Will listened carefully. He wanted to explain to Rich all about his girl back home, who wasn't a ballet dancer, but a simple farmers daughter. But Will had liked so very much. Then Rich had started to dance, showing Will what his girl used to do. He twirled and tripped, and stumbled. They both chuckled, and Will was about tell Rich to stop being a prat and listen to him, when their was a muffled crack from way out somewhere in the gloom, and a metallic ping from much closer, and Rich dropped to his knees, holding the back of his helmet. Will was in frozen shock. Rich looked up, bewildered. But as his eyes reached Will's stunned face, they glazed over, all emotion gone. His arms dropped to his side.

"Rich?"

Rich toppled silently onto his side. He lay crumpled in the dirt, and a puddle spread from his head. Panic and sorrow and a hundred other emotions were clamouring inside Will as he looked at his dead friend.

But one overrode them all. He was a soldier now, 10 months of grisly trench war and knocked that into him. He crouched low immediately, out of sight. He considered calling for a medic, but the empty space inside told him it was too late for that. He got to a firing step with a metal rail at ground level. He balanced his rifle on the rail, lined up the sights, and fired three shots off into the gloom in the direction the sniper's bullet had come from. He climbed back down, got hold of a fellow troop and told him to go along the line and find a spare man for night watch at their spot. He would keep it till the soldier brought Rich's replacement. He then walked the few paces that took him to the command dugout. He informed the senior officer that snipers were active in the opposite trench and that they had claimed one man already. The officer nodded seriously and thanked him, before issuing some orders to a couple of lower rank men. Will was dismissed, and it was then that he returned to Rich.

He looked down at the limp form. He checked the area; no one in sight. He pulled a letter from Rich's pocket to his mother and slipped it into his own. He crouched by his friend's lifeless body, grinded his teeth and held back the hot tears that were in his eyes, obscuring his vision that was so clear when aiming with a gun. He layed his hand on Rich's forehead. He couldn't think of anything to say.

"Thank you."

Will whispered to his good friend, who's life had been untimely taken from him. Will closed Rich's eyes, stood up, wiped his face on his grimy sleeve, checked his watch, then walked off to his next watch point without looking back.

Now, four days later, as Will stared out into no-man's-land, into the face of death yet again, he remembered Rich, and he fought against that tide of emotion that was always so near the brink in the trenches. Then it came, the call to good men to come and give their lives in a hopeless, stumbling trudge across mud and blood for their country: the whistle. As Will climbed the ladders with his fellow troops, he thought that it was honourable and good to fight and die for your country; but not like this, nothing like this. He stood as he got to the top and began to run. Somehow the generals thought it better for the men to walk across the sludge into the machine guns. Will knew different after many failed attacks and counter-attacks. He ran for his life, bullets splashing into the mud all round him. His side had given the enemy trenches a good artillery pounding the night before, and the enemy was weakened. But the barrage had also worked against its operators as a beacon to the Germans, showing where the British would be attacking. So there was a lot of shooting coming out of the trenches Will was running to, but not enough. Many of his comrades had fallen already but there were still men by Will's side, and he felt a surge of confidence.

He yelled with excitement and quickened his pace, dodging small explosions and large puddles. The Autumnal rains had turned no-man's-land to wet slime, and it was hard going, but Will was almost at the trench. The noise was terrible: orders, harsh cries, explosions, thuds and above all, the scream of shells overhead and the whistle of bullets either side. Blood spattered from somewhere, and a poor soul was crying "My arm! Oh god, they've taken my arm!" Through it all cut Will's confidence, heightened by the sight of fellow men jumping into the enemy trenches.

Then it all went wrong. Just as he surged forward, he slipped and tumbled forward. He was looking at dirt, the sky, then he was rolling down into a pit. Not a pit of fire. He came to rest in a puddle of slime at the bottom of a large shell crater. But he was not alone. A haggard, grey-faced German was sitting to his right, trembling like a leaf, with a bloody leg and staring wide-eyed and fearful at Will. As far as he could see the man wasn't carrying a weapon, and he obviously couldn't move. The grown man began to whimper, licking parched lips and looking at Will's face, up at the sky and at Will's gun, miraculously still in his hands. Will looked at the other man, wearing the uniform of the enemy, his people the cause of all this hate and death, of Rich's death...

Will raised his Winchester and was half way to pulling the trigger, shooting the German full in the face, spitting on his body then returning to the attack to kill more of the man's countrymen. But the man was so weak, and he looked parched, and hungry. He had obviously been left for dead in this crater by his own side; he couldn't even crawl back through the muck and mayhem and fumes, because of his useless leg.

And, finally, as Will looked at his country's enemy, who was just as harrowed and scared as Will was every day in this place, those emotions that had been building with each death Will witnessed, welled up and over and Will began to sob. He hugged his knees and wanted his mum. He cried out loud that if only he could get away from this awful place, and get back to his loved ones, and be safe again from the horrors of war. The German was shocked. He stared at Will awhile, then, tentatively, patted Will's back, grasped his shoulder briefly, and then withdrew his hand. Will looked at him, and smiled. In that moment a strange relationship came into being, if only for a few moments. Will took his water gourd from his belt and passed the German soldier a drink. He took it, and drank deep and greedily, letting the tepid water wash his lips before swallowing. When he looked up happily, Will was on his feet, with the Autumn sun silhouetting him, and to the German Will seemed like a hero on a government pamphlet, strong and good and keen for the blood of the enemy. A breeze came into the hollow, bringing the horrible sounds of the attack with it. The British had at last broken through and now bitter, bloody hand to hand fighting was taking place in the German trenches, giving no thought to life or limb; or anything that is good, just annihilation of the enemy.

Will looked back down at the cowering man in the mud, nodded briskly, then clambered up the crater side, out into the fresh chill and roared back into battle.

By Ed McClaran 11E


End file.
